Month: September 2018

Call for Papers: New Voices in Professional Responsibility—Works in Progress Session AALS Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Thursday, January 3, 3:30-4:45 pm

Renee KnakeLeave a comment

AALS Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Thursday, January 3, 3:30-4:45 pm

The Professional Responsibility Section is pleased to host a works in progress session during the 2019 Annual Program. Papers selected will be presented at the session along with commentary from a scholar in the field. Papers can be on any professional responsibility topic from professors with seven years or less of full-time teaching experience. Submitted drafts should be near completion with the expectation that they will be submitted for publication during the spring law review submission cycle.

Papers should be submitted to Melissa Mortazavi, via email at melissa.mortazavi@ou.edu, no later than September 17, 2018, with the subject line: PR Works in Progress.

ABA House of Delegates Amends Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation Rules (updated with information about MPRE testing)

Renee KnakeLeave a comment

From the ABA Journal:

The ABA House of Delegates on Monday voted in favor of amending Rule 7 of ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which addresses lawyer advertising.

Lucian Pera, of Adams and Reese in Memphis, Tennessee, and chair of the Center for Professional Responsibility, told delegates that in the decades since the 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona allowed for lawyers to advertise their services, there’s been a “breathtaking variation in advertising rules” among states. He said the amendments were necessary to clarify and simplify these rules.

Resolution 101 amends Rules 7.1-7.5, and was informed 2015 and 2016 reports by the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. The Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility worked on the edits over the course of two years, holding at least two open hearings. A detailed article on their work is available here.

No one rose to oppose the amendment, and the majority of delegates voted in favor of the amendments.

For those of you teaching PR during 2018-2019, you may wish to advise your students regarding the appearance of revised rules on the MPRE. Here is the position of the NCBE as posted on its website:

Amendments to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct or the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct will be reflected in the examination no earlier than one year after the approval of the amendments by the American Bar Association. Until that time, the examination may include questions that test on the rules before amendment.

OTHERWISE: Lodestar rising? Calif. federal judges are opting for lodestar awards in megacases | Reuters

George ConkLeave a comment

Lodestar rising? Calif. federal judges are opting for lodestar awards in megacases | Reuters by Alison Frankel (Reuters) – It’s always no…

Source: OTHERWISE: Lodestar rising? Calif. federal judges are opting for lodestar awards in megacases | Reuters

 

(Reuters) – It’s always notable when a federal judge presiding over a big class action slashes a fee request by millions of dollars – but I think there’s another story lurking beneath the dollar signs in an opinion issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of San Jose.
Three plaintiffs’ firms that obtained nearly $170 million for artists and engineers whose job prospects suffered under an alleged no-poaching agreement among animation studios asked Judge Koh to award them $31.5 million for squeezing a $150 million settlement from Disney and Dreamworks. The judge instead granted them $13.8 million. She previously awarded $4.7 million in fees for a smaller classwide settlement, bringing the total fees for plaintiffs’ lawyers from Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Susman Godfrey to about $18.5 million.
Notably, Judge Koh’s award was based not on the recovery the firms won for class members but on their hourly billings. The firms wanted the judge to grant them 21 percent of the class recovery, which, they argued, is less than the 25 percent benchmark established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Judge Koh, however, applied the alternative lodestar approach.

OTHERWISE: Oregon Bar Dues Challenged on First Amendment Grounds

George ConkLeave a comment

In Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees  in a 5 -4 vote the United States Supreme Court struck an Illinoi…

Source: OTHERWISE: Oregon Bar Dues Challenged on First Amendment Grounds

 

In Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees in a 5 -4 vote the United States Supreme Court struck an Illinois law requiring public employees represented by an AFSCME local to pay “agency fees” to the union for its representation which protected the interests of all bargaining unit members.  The majority rejected that argument – holding that union advocacy on matters such as state budgets was political speech which the objecting members could not be compelled to “subsidize”.

Now two Oregon lawyers are objecting to the fees charged by the Oregon State Bar to which they are obligated by statute to contribute.  In their complaint Diane Gruber and Mark Reynolds object to a statement by the State Bar denouncing “White nationalism”.  I would vote for that statement every day if it were offered before the voluntary New Jersey State Bar Association of which I have been an active member for thirty years.  But the Oregon State Bar is not a voluntary organization for lawyers who want to practice in the State.  So though Gruber and Reynolds may have ideological views I find abominable, they do seem to have grounds for their complaint relying on Janus. – gwc